The Emerging Gallery

WAYS OF MAKING PEOPLE DISAPPEAR

Solo show by Michelle Schapiro

In America, in 2025, it feels increasingly unsafe to be openly queer or trans. It seems that each day brings new horrors and indignities to the LGBTQIA+ community, as political extremism in the US grows bolder in its persecution of queer and trans individuals. Ways of Making People Disappear, as the artist’s first solo presentation, seeks to explore that lack of safety through simple, evocative diptychs. Since 2023, Michelle Schapiro has been making portraits of LGBTQIA+ folks simply living. She documents participants sitting on their front steps, riding their bicycles, commuting to their jobs. 

“I photograph friends and neighbors, people I know and those I have met through the project, living their lives and their truths. These images hold power on their own, but I then make a second picture with the subject gone from the frame, speaking to the literal and figurative erasure of queer lives. The empty space where a human being once stood is a powerful reminder of what’s at stake if queer and trans lives are erased.”

Michelle Schapiro (b. 1984, Portland, ME) is a photographic artist whose work focuses primarily on queerness, family, and liminal ways of being. A central concern of her photographic process is the framing of narratives about the beauty and necessity of queer life and community. Family, both given and chosen, are strong themes, as well as the importance of queer and trans visibility—both artist and subjects are able to see and be seen. This is the most basic goal of queer liberation—to lift up LGBTQIA+ voices and acknowledge that we exist in individual, collective, and vital ways. Michelle’s photographs have been exhibited in group shows in New York, California, and Massachusetts, as well as online, with upcoming solo exhibitions in 2025. She lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.

To learn more about the artist or inquiries please visit michelleschapiro.work